BY RITA OYIBOKA
A home is more than just four walls and a roof, it is a foundation, an anchor, a sanctuary. Like the roots of a tree, it provides stability, nourishment, and the promise of growth. Without it, a tree is at the mercy of the elements, bending, breaking, or withering. And in Nigeria, thousands of children are just like these uprooted trees left to drift through life without shelter, security, or hope.
They sleep under bridges, in abandoned buildings, or curled up in market stalls after traders shut their shops for the night. Some have fled homes where fists and insults replaced love and care. Others have been orphaned by disease or insurgency, victims of Boko Haram’s relentless violence in the Northeast. Then there are those who were simply born into poverty so deep that their parents, unable to feed them, sent them into the streets to fend for themselves.
But who are these children, really? Are they merely statistics in grim UNICEF reports, or are they the silent casualties of a system that has turned its back on them? And if the streets are their only refuge, where else can they go?
Street Life in Asaba: A Grim Reality
In Asaba, the capital of Delta State, the same tragic narrative plays out daily. From Interbua Roundabout to Koka Bridge and Summit Junction, street children gather in clusters, scavenging, hawking, or simply loitering. Beneath the noise of bustling traffic and honking keke (tricycles), their lives unfold in a silent tragedy.
Take 14-year-old Clinton Lucky, for instance. Originally from Anambra State, he found himself alone in Asaba after his mother died, likely from the exhaustion of struggling to survive on the streets. “I sell bottled water,” he told The Pointer. “I and my mom came to Asaba, but she died. My senior brother took her body to the village for burial. My mother’s sisters don’t care about me. If I am sent to them, they won’t take me in. I just want to go to school.”
But Clinton is just one of the bunch. Alongside ten other children, he was recently evacuated from the streets by the Delta State Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, and Social Development. At the crack of dawn, the ministry’s team combed through the city, searching for homeless minors. They were found under flyovers, in half-finished buildings, lurking in shadows, starving, disheveled, yet quick on their feet, darting away like startled animals when the officials arrived.
It was no easy task.
Some fought back, kicking and screaming. “I no do anything na!” one child shouted, resisting the firm grip of a government worker. Another boy, no older than ten, writhed and struggled before finally giving in. And yet, in their eyes, there were no tears. There was panic. Visible fear. But not a line of tears on their faces.
What kind of childhood conditions does a child have to meet the unknown with dry, unblinking eyes? What does it take to strip a child of tears?
The Street Is No Home
As the officials moved through Asaba, the public assisted, pointing out hideouts. “Dem dey there!” someone shouted, motioning toward an uncompleted building. Inside, they found a young family, a man, a woman, and their toddler living under a mosquito net, their belongings reduced to a mat and a few scattered items. The child, a girl no older than three, watched silently as the team rummaged through the structure. Was she not homeless, too? Or does having parents, even in an uncompleted building, still qualify as ‘shelter’?
Her parents were there, though they had no proper shelter. Was living in an uncompleted building with family better than being truly alone? Where does the line of homelessness begin and end?
When Desperation Wears a Bandage
Nearby, 19-year-old Regina Albert perched on a plastic bucket at Summit Junction, her three-month-old baby cradled in her arms. Beside her, a megaphone blared gospel music, an ironic contrast to the desperation in her eyes. A crude bandage covered the swelling on her face, an ominous reminder of the hardship she claimed to bear.
“The person who got me pregnant abandoned me,” she said, her voice steady despite the weight of her words. “I only started begging a week ago. I don’t sleep on the streets, I lodge in a hotel every night. I come from Onitsha every day to beg in Asaba.”
Her words raised more questions than they answered. How did she afford a hotel every night yet rely on begging to survive? And then there was the matter of the bandaged wound.
“The hospital told me I have cancer,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
Cancer? A terrifying diagnosis, but who exactly told her this? A proper oncologist or some back-alley medic with a stethoscope and a guess? How did she afford a diagnosis at all, given her circumstances? If she truly had cancer, where was she receiving treatment, or was she receiving any at all?
Her baby, Shedrack, wriggled slightly in her arms, utterly oblivious to the bleakness of his mother’s situation. A black streak of tiro lined his eyes, a traditional touch meant to protect against the supernatural. But what about the threats rooted in reality, poverty, disease, and society’s cruel indifference?
Was Regina a victim of fate or a storyteller skilled at tugging heartstrings? One could doubt her words, but there was no doubting the exhaustion in her posture, the desperation in her voice, or the difficult road ahead for her and her child.
The No-Man’s-Land Under Koka Bridge
Further ahead, at Koka Bridge, another harsh reality emerged. The children here were no children at all, or at least, they did not act like it. Armed with sticks and planks, boys aged 14 to 18 stood their ground. Their eyes carried the weight of experience beyond their years, their postures hardened by street survival.
Armed with planks, sticks, and whatever else was within reach, they were warriors of the underbelly. Boys who should have been in school debating whether science students were smarter than arts students had long shed their innocence for survival.
Amidst the chaos, a woman wielding a broom screamed in panic. “Leave my pikin! Na my pikin be that!” She had been sweeping just a few feet away when her two toddlers pantsless, dirt-streaked were mistakenly rounded up with the homeless children. The government officials quickly released them, and she strapped one firmly onto her back, a silent declaration of ownership and protection.
A Nation Failing Its Children
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, Nigeria is home to 20.2 million out-of-school children, the highest in the world. The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) further reports that one in three Nigerian children is not in school. With no education, no structure, and no protection, where do these children turn? The answer is painfully simple: the streets.
But the streets are not kind. They do not care who you are, only how fast you can run or how strong you can fight. Street children are easy prey, exploited by traffickers, and forced into labour, prostitution, and crime. They are robbed of innocence, denied medical care, and stripped of opportunity. And without intervention, the cycle continues.
“Child Homelessness Has No Place in Delta” – Ajudua
However, the Delta State Commissioner for Women Affairs, Community, and Social Development, Hon. (Evang.) Pat Ajudua, has vowed to rid the streets of child homelessness and hawking. Leading the recent operation to rescue street children, she made it clear that the state government would not tolerate juveniles living under bridges.
“The essence of this exercise is to get these children off the streets,” she said. “Delta State does not encourage street hawking or people sleeping under flyovers. Over time, they become a public nuisance and a security threat. We are taking proactive measures to evacuate them before the situation worsens.”
She revealed that the rescued children were being profiled, and those with families would be sent back home. Others would receive rehabilitation and shelter. However, she acknowledged a major challenge: many of these children return to the streets within days.
“We will persist in our efforts and ensure the streets remain clear,” she added.
Meanwhile, residents have expressed mixed reactions. A food seller at Summit Junction who only identified as Obiageli, commended the initiative but pointed out deeper issues. “These children are everywhere, stealing, fighting. But removing them is not enough. What next? Where will they go?”
Among the evacuees were twin brothers Peter and Paul Izua from Imo State. They had been selling sachet water and sleeping under the Summit flyover since dropping out of school in JSS1. “We don’t want to live on the streets anymore,” they said. “We just want to go back to school.”
The Unanswered Questions
Delta State’s crackdown on child homelessness is commendable. But will evacuation alone solve the problem? Where will these children be in a month? A year? Will they be in school, in homes, or back under the bridges?
More importantly, what happens to the ones who are never found?
One thing remains certain: no child should have to call the streets home. And until that reality changes, the battle is far from over.
